NCJ Number
148300
Date Published
1993
Length
182 pages
Annotation
This book examines network of prison camps (GULAG) developed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with emphasis on the period from the October Revolution of 1917, when the tsarist prison system was destroyed, to October 1934, when all places of confinement were consolidated under one agency.
Abstract
The prison camps served the Soviet government in many ways: to isolate opponents and frighten the population into submission; to increase labor productivity through the arrest of workers deemed inefficient; and to provide labor for factories, mines, lumbering, and construction projects. The text focuses on the structure and relationships among prison agencies, the Bolshevik views of crime and punishment and inmate reeducation, prison self-sufficiency, and the political conditions and competition among prison agencies that contributed to an unprecedented expansion of the system. The author disputes the official claim of 1931 that the system was profitable. Figures, tables, photographs, maps, index, chapter reference notes, and appended descriptions of major agencies (Publisher summary modified)